Barbarians Archive

This thesis compares how these two empires conquered and assimilated these barbarian groups, namely the Roman conquest of Gaul and the Chinese conquest of the Xiongnu, a nomadic people that inhabited modern day Mongolia.

The extension of Roman citizenship to noncitizens was an unqualified success. As the Greek orator Aristides proclaimed in the mid-second century, 'Neither sea nor intervening continent are bars to citizenship. No one worthy of rule or trust remains an alien, but a civil community of the World has been established as a FreeRepublic.'

This essay argues that the treatment of captives constituted a vicious cycle in which the defenders of city would resolutely resist the siege for fear of massacre, mass rape, and enslavement; this stalwart defense, in turn, would contribute to cruel treatment of captives when and if the city fell.

More significant, perhaps, is the fact that he was elevated to the position of Augustus by Honorius after he had temporarily pacified the region of Gaul. A major part o f Constantius's program ofpacificaiion had been moving the powerful Visigoths into the region.

The recovery, however, proved to be too superficial for the continuing prosperity of either Gaul or the Western Roman Empire. The problems of the imperial government continued with little relief. The government still had to drive out and keep out the barbarians...

Intellectual and spiritual treason represent the final depths of public crime in which the individual sets his personal will against the established legal order, representing the collec- tive wisdom of the race. Indeed, in a large philosophic sense treason underlies all crime, for the ultimate effect of crime is the subversion of society and the death of the state.

A careful analysis of all of his battle narratives in the Annales, Historiae, and the Agricola reveals that Tacitus is concerned with defining ethnic boundaries, or identities, namely those of the Romans and of the barbarians.